Two Gentleman And A Lady

Bernard Wilson was a gentleman, no matter what he said about it. He said that he could not be a gentleman because he was only an enlisted man in the military. To be a gentleman, he said, you had to be an officer. Otherwise, you were called a dogface or a GI. That may be how the military saw Bernard Wilson. I saw him as a true gentleman.


I met Bernard Wilson after I began working at the newspaper. He wrote the veterans and military news column for the paper. He would bring it into the office for me to type. While there, he would always speak for a few moments, peppering the conversation with wisdom he had learned in his life as a rear tail gunner during World War II, as a manager for Florida Power, as a city commissioner, as the Veterans Service officer and as a Christian.

One story that still sticks out to me to this day is the one that he told me about the turkey shoots they held while he was growing up in South Georgia. He pointed out that back then, they didn't shoot at a target. They put a bunch of turkeys in a pen and the first one that stuck his neck out got his head blown off. The story stuck with me and serves as an example of how we should be humble. He did later tell me, however, that sometimes you do have to stick your neck out. The second story reminds me of how sometimes you have to make a sacrifice for the good of others. You have to be willing to get your head shot off.

Bernard Wilson was a gentleman until the end when he died last week.

Ruth Hagen was a lady. She was also the fastest typist I believe that I have ever seen. She also had the unique ability to edit as she typed. Last week, when we ran her obituary on the front page, I was tempted to use the headline "World's Greatest Typesetter" passes away.

I have missed Mrs. Ruth since she retired. She had an innate ability to take stuff that had been handed her from off the street and make it flow like Ernest Hemingway or John Steinbeck had written it. She could also interpret Andy Denonn's writing.

Andy, who died years ago, was a bit eccentric but he was great at gathering news. He was not, however, good at writing it in a form that made sense. That was left to others, including Mrs. Ruth who could turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. Andy banged away at the typewriter (he wasn't allowed near computer keyboards) with his two index fingers (and he was almost as fast as Mrs. Ruth, only with a lot fewer correct words per minute) and he would turn it in. When Mrs. Ruth retired, I inherited her duties with Andy's stories. That, however, is not why I missed her. She had a delightful sense of humor and she was not afraid to say what she wanted.

Wilmer Bell was also a gentleman. A friend of my father's and a cousin of my mother (and myself), he was always one who entertained with a story and he always provided fruit from his adopted hometown of Vero Beach each Christmas. He and my father used to run a candy route together and my daddy tells a story of how, while on the candy route, they came up on a dead man, who had left John Hill's bar on 53 South and had been hit by a truck, hauling a load of wood chips to Foley.

Wilmer's death last week affected my father profoundly and, I know, that it had to have affected his close family members even more profoundly.

All three of these people will be missed. Each one had a way of showing in different ways how others should be treated. I believe that each of them did like Jesus and did unto others as they would have done unto them.